America is deep in the middle of the worst global recession in the past hundred years. Combine the overall weak economy with the fact that American businesses have to compete in a global economy, and it becomes vital that businesses cut expenses. If that were not enough, the threat of global warming means that we will have to decrease pollution. Yet there is a way to combat both of these monumental problems that instead of calling for sacrifices, it could actually raise the quality of life.
This solution is to abandon the office buildings and embrace telecommuting, or as it is better known, working from home. Research by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish shows that as many as 40% of jobs can be done at home with the technology available today (Lister and Harnish par. 3). There are many reasons why telecommuting should be encouraged since it benefits employees, communities, businesses, and the environment. Advances in communication technology have reached a point where a traditional office environment is not only an inefficient use of business resources, but superfluous.
The picture painted by the issues of the economy and environment is dire. On the topic of the economy, America is currently shedding half a million jobs per month. Wages have barely been keeping pace with inflation for the last thirty years. Those of us who do still have health benefits find that while the price goes up, the choices and quality of our healthcare goes down. We are outsourcing jobs to other countries, but in doing so, we are destroying the purchasing power of American consumers. Likewise, the statistics on environmental problems are severe. A study by Tiax stated that our cars churned 840 million tons of carbon monoxide into the air in 2008 (Tiax). Plus, we have to rely on hostile Middle Eastern countries to provide for our gasoline.
However, the biggest problem that we face is neither the economy nor the environment. The problem is in where we are looking for solutions. The government, the media, and our employers are constantly asking us to make sacrifices for the good of the country.
We are working harder when we should be working smarter. We are not going to improve the economy by slashing our workforce since they are the ones generating our income. This is exactly what we're doing, and at best it is an emergency stopgap to cut expenses in a downturn. But what business would choose to cut expenses if it also cuts revenue when there is a way to cut expenses and increase revenue?
By having a large percentage of the population working at home, it will create a "butterfly effect" of consequences that could potentially increase the nation's productivity by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Of course, there are some current drawbacks to telecommuting, but most of these drawbacks are due to the fact this movement is still in the early stages of development. People are resistant to the new and unknown, and we will have to adapt to both new technologies and lifestyles. As noted by Matt Rosenberg," Obvious barriers to telecommuting are lack of trust from employers, and personal disconnectedness for teleworkers perhaps coupled in some instances with legitimate fears their career advancement will be harmed by lack of time spent on in-person alliance-building and office politicking"(Rosenberg, par.5). We'll return to these shortcomings, but first, what can we gain?
The first place to see the benefits of telework is in the daily commute. According to the latest statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2002 the average worker spent 235 minutes per week driving to and from work (ACS p.1). By staying at home, this gives teleworkers 203 hours of personal time per year, and teleworkers will save money on gas as well. To give a real world example, the National Science Foundation found that their teleworkers saved on average an extra $1,200 a year (Banegas par. 6).
In addition to improving your financial health, telework can improve your physical health as well. Since people are staying at home, they are much less likely to eat fast food, which makes teleworking part of the solution for the obesity epidemic as well. On the subject of illnesses, traditional offices also help spread airborne illnesses.
But it isn't just our individual health that's suffering. America's small towns are dying out in recent years as there has been a population surge in bigger cities where the job market is better. However, cities also have a higher cost of living and much higher pollution levels. Telework allows people to live where they want to live, not forcing them to live near one's job. By staying in the smaller communities, these teleworkers could be the economic stimulus that keeps small town Main Streets healthy. All of these improvements to the cost effectiveness of American workers could very well also help combat the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, which would further strengthen the economy.
All of these improvements for the employee have the added effect of being better for the environment as well. Traffic jams alone cause a surprising large amount of environmental and economic problems. The Texas Transportation Institute estimated that in 2005 traffic jams in America caused 2.9 billion gallons in wasted fuel and $78.2 billion in lost productivity (Schrank p.1). In addition to the savings gained from smoother flowing traffic, "An estimated 1.35 billion gallons of gasoline could be conserved annually if every U.S. worker with the ability to telecommute did so 1.6 days per week" (Abate par 1). By having 40% fewer cars on the roads, there will be less traffic jams. There will be less road repairs needed. There will be less air pollution. There will be less road rage. There will be fewer accidents.
Decentralizing our infrastructure also helps combat the war on terror. Again, having fewer cars on the road reduces our foreign oil dependence. Since people are not gathered in vulnerable groups, there are no targets for terrorists to attack. For the same reasons, telework helps protect us from natural disasters. No hurricane or earthquake can stop a business that has its assets spread across the whole country. In fact, the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management "have increasingly pushed telecommuting in recent years, in part because they believe they can help agencies cope with emergencies and catastrophic events that shut down main offices" (Barr par. 5).
There are numerous little annoyances that are necessary evils of traditional jobs that are bothersome to employees, but they really hit employers where it hurts. It costs them money, and lots of it.
First, consider the cost of absenteeism. Lister and Harnish found many statistics on absenteeism while researching for their book Undress for Success. They found that 78% of the time when an employee calls in sick, they aren't. We live in very stressful and busy times, and sometimes people need to take time for appointments that can only be scheduled during business hours. However, all these missed days cost employers $1,800 per employee per year, for a total cost to American businesses of $300 billion dollars per year (Lister and Harnish par. 42). What all this means for businesses is that you have increased productivity without having to hire extra workers.
On top of those savings, teleworkers are also generally more productive. There is a study that shows that companies lose $650 billion a year in workplace distractions (Keller par.5). Surveys performed by Gartner Dataquest shows time after time when a company enacts a telework program, productivity grows by surprising huge amounts. Sun Microsystems found that 60% of the time that employees would have spent on the daily commune was time that employees spent working. JDEdwards had an overall increase in productivity of 20%. American Express had a 43% jump up in their productivity. Compaq saw a boost of 15% (Rosenburg par 3). Likewise, BT, a communications company in the UK, estimates that it has saved at least $500 million, and has improved its productivity by between 15% and 31%. (Levit par. 4) The increase in productivity from teleworkers is usually between 25 to 40 percent. If we take the lower figure of a 25% increase, this would total $200 billion in savings for American businesses. (Lister and Harnish p. 122).
Yet another area where telework shines is improving underemployment. Underemployment is "used to describe localities where economic activity rates are unusually low. This can be induced by a lack of job opportunities, training opportunities, or services such as childcare and public transportation"(“Underemployment,” Wikipedia, par. 2). There are many groups of potential employees that currently don't work that would have the ability to do so with telework. There are those with physical disabilities that find the hardship of the commune too difficult to pursue employment. Then there are those with mental disabilities, such as autism and Asperger's syndrome, that find it hard to work in the social environment of traditional offices. There are also those that can't or won't live in cities due to health concerns, such as those with severe asthma. Then there are parents of small children that don't have access to childcare.
Another concern that businesses have about telework is the expense of setting up the information infrastructure. However, the United States General Services Administration reported that the average first year cost per employee was only one thousand dollars and sometimes as low as three hundred dollars, and a study by NCR and Lucent found that the average savings from the first year were double the costs of setup (For Tele-Managers and Employers par. 46). Any expenses incurred by setting up a telecommunications network are immediately countered by the saving in real estate costs. Lister and Harnish state, "U.S. companies could collectively increase their bottom lines by $395 billion as a result of savings in real estate" (Lister and Harnish par. 33). Also, there are environmental benefits to getting rid of office buildings as well since it takes energy to heat and cool them, usually 24 hours a day, even if the vast majority of the workers have gone home.
One issue that must be addressed is security concerns. Of all the possible shortcomings to telework, this is the issue that seems to worry people the most. It seems almost commonplace to hear about enormous security blunders on the evening news. UPS lost the sensitive data of almost 4 million Citigroup customers. The Bank of America Corporation lost private information of over one million government employees. LexisNexis had a blunder that compromised over 300,000 people.
Having so much sensitive information in one location that can be easily accessed by criminals scares the general population. However, of all the reasons to not enact telework, security concerns are the ones most easily solved. Almost 93% of managers involved in IRS pilot telework program believe there is no problem with data security (Burholt par. 8)
First, having good database management policies means that information should be encrypted and should be given only to those employees that need it to perform their jobs. Second, access should only be granted to those users after their identity is confirmed. Biometric scanners such as thumbprint readers are relatively inexpensive and can keep data secure, and it is very easy to have computers automatically log users off after periods of inactivity. If these very simple solutions were enacted then no one short of the pentagon could get to the data even if they did steal a laptop.
The thing that people seem to forget about leaks such as these is that they didn't start with the invention of computer databases. There have been and always will be criminals. The difference between white collar crimes of the past and now is that in the past if a thief stole a pile of paperwork there was no way to know about the theft until someone checked the physical location or worse, a crime using the information was committed. The simple fact that you hear about a security breach on the news is a good sign. Having more information about who accessed what data at what time at what location for what reason allows us to combat criminals in a way that could not be done in an analog paper world.
Adrian Burholt summed it up nicely. "The recent and steady stream of lost data stories in the press (missing memory sticks, laptops left on trains) is enough in itself to put some employers off remote working, who reasonably assume that everyone is liable to forgetting a memory stick. Exaggerating the risks of remote working to sell more technology to customers merely adds to negative perceptions . . . [but] it’s actually very easy to secure portable data even when it’s been left on a train: credit cards and mobile phones already do so and it’s so integral to both products that I suspect most users don’t give it a second thought." (Burholt par. 16).
There are a host of outdated policies that we will have to change if the transaction to a teleworking society is to happen. "But, from unfriendly zoning ordinances to frustrating tax laws, political barriers to telecommuting can be found at every level of government" (Balaker par. 10). For example, the tax problems he mentioned is that if you live in one state, but work in another, in many parts of the country you will be taxed twice.
Another area that is going to have to be rethought is the idea of a work hour. Since teleworkers aren't being watched by supervisors, who knows when and if they're working. However, again the solution is to change the way that we do business.
Simply pay employees by productivity. If employees have a direct correlation between the quality of their work and the size of their paycheck, then they will work harder. For all of our talk of being the leader of capitalism in the world, the way that businesses pay their employees runs counter to that mindset. In a great number of jobs a worker will be paid the same amount no matter the quality or quantity of their work. Not surprisingly, the average worker then spends 20% percent of their workday goofing off (Workforce Productivity par. 2). Instead of perpetuating the problem, telework will force us to face this issue and cause us to be better off for it.
Being a teleworker means being responsible that the work gets done without the watchful eye of a supervisor. While some might see this as a possible weakness, those that have actually participated in telework programs see it as a positive. (>> "When companies allow employees to work remotely or from home, they are explicitly communicating to them that 'I trust you to be dedicated to the accomplishment of the work, even if I'm not able to observe you doing it,' " says Jack Wiley [. . .] "It boils down to respect," he says. "I respect you and I have confidence in your commitment to the work -- to do this under the conditions and at the time you feel will be most productive for you" (Coombes par. 5)
There are still some problems that might arise, but I suggest that that we make our choices as a pragmatic cost/gain scenario. We can gain at least $78 billion by bypassing traffic jams. $300 billion gained by having fewer missed days. Then add $200 billion from the increased productivity. Reduced real estate expenses add another $395 billion to that. That's a total of $973 billion, close to one trillion dollars, added to our economy.
Then there are the benefits that are priceless. We can make our employees lives better, our environment cleaner, our communities stronger all the while helping us combat public health concerns and help us cope against both natural disasters and terrorist attacks.
On the opposite side, the cons of having a large percentage of the workforce working from home are unknown. The same "butterfly effect" of consequences works against us. What effect having so many cars off the road would have on the automotive industry won't be good, but there are too many variables to know how bad it will be. It's not as if these workers will not be driving at all, but there is a good chance that the two car household might become a thing of the past. Likewise, businesses that cater mainly to office workers will also be hurt. Will Starbucks have to shut down locations or will they simply have to relocate? As we rely more on technology, the number and effects of cybercrime are likely to increase.
Have no doubts that there will be stumbling blocks. But if we don't start aggressively increasing the number of teleworkers, it won't improve the situation. The meaningless pollution will still continue as we sit steaming in a traffic jam. We could greatly increase the country's infrastructure, but that will cause more pollution, and frankly, we can't afford it.
Industry and technology got us into the problem of global warming and there are two ways out. We can return to a pre-industrial lifestyle or we fight fire with fire and use our creativity and intelligence to find the solution. Personally, I happen to like indoor plumbing, and I choose the second route.great!
All the economic problems that America is facing can be traced back to the transition pains as the global economy becomes more and more technological-driven. The solution to these problems does not lay with layoffs and shutting down businesses, but investing in and leading smart business practices. In the end it isn't a question of whether or not to implement telework. Pandora's Box is already open, and all these troubles aren't going back into the box. Too many companies have already started relying on telework and have been successful in doing so. Those that still use traditional workers will have to compete with businesses that can do the same job quicker, cheaper, and with more flexibility. The question becomes when to promote telework and by how much. I believe the answer is now and by as much as possible.
The elegance of this solution is that we can have our cake and eat it, too. We don't have to do without, which has never been one of America's strong suits. Instead, we can grow and innovate, and all of the problems that we might face aren't problems at all. If there is concern for information security, then there is also a market for information security.
If we return to the mindset of leading the world to a brighter future, then we will have the experience needed to not only survive the tough times, but thrive. We are living in a science fiction world now and the sooner that we start acting like it the better off we'll be.
Selected Bibliography
"2008 Workforce Productivity". Salary.com December 2008. Web. 1 May 2009.
Abate, Tom. "Group Touts Telecommuting's Green Benefits". San Francisco Chronicle. D1. 22 April 2008. Web. 23 March 2009.
American Community Survey. (ACS) "Average Travel Time to Work of Workers 16 Years and Over Who Did Not Work at Home (Minutes)." U.S. Census Bureau. 2002. Web. 15 April 2009.
Balaker, Ted. "The Quiet Success". Reason Foundation. Web. 14 March 2009.
Banegas, Diane. ""Telework" Benefits Employers, Employees and the Environment". National Science Foundation. Web. 28 March 2009.
Barr, Stephen. "After Pushing Telework, GSA Tries to Lead Way". 13 September 2007 Washington Post. D04. Web. 22 March 2009.
Burholt, Adrian. "Managing Remote Workers" Computing Magazine. 30 September 2008. Web. 22 March 2009.
Coombes, Andrea. "Seeking Loyal, Devoted Workers? Let Them Stay Home" Wall Street Journal. B4. 11 September 2007.Web. March 22 2009.
"For Tele-Managers & Employers" WWW.IVC.ca. InnoVisions Canada. 1997. Web. 2 May 2009
Harnish, Tom and Lister, Kate. "Telecommuting Pros and Cons". Undress4Success.com Web. 26 March 2009.
Keller, Emily. "Why You Can't Get Any Work Done". Business Week. 19 July 2007. Web. 1 May 2009.
Levit, Alexandra. "Convince the Boss That You Should Telecommute" Forbes. 17 March 2009. Web. 14 March 2009
Rosenberg, Matt. "Slow But Steady "Telework Revolution" Eyed". Discovery Institute. 26 September 2007. Web. 23 March 2009
Schrank, David and Lomax, Tim."2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report". Texas Transportation Institute. September 2007. Web. 14 April 2009.
TIAX LLC "The Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact of Telecommuting and e-Commerce". Consumer Electronics Association. July 2007. Web. 14 March 2009
"Underemployment." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 Apr 2009, 15:57 UTC. 4 May 2009
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